Eleanor Arnason's Blog, page 95

Visible Hand # 3

I've been under the weather the past week, very discouraged by the behavior of Congress and then slightly ill. So I have been entertaining myself with the visible hand, rather than doing the things I normally do, such as exercise and write science fiction.

Another couple of examples of how acting in one's own best interest does not benefit the economy...

(1) It's a good idea for individuals to build up a savings account, or so we are told, and it sounds right to me. And it makes good sense for...

Everyday Chaos

This is from a post by Immanuel Wallerstein. I'm not able to link to the complete essay, but you can get to it by Goggling Immanuel Wallerstein. It's his February 15 commentary on everyday chaos.

You know you're living in a chaotic situation when (1) the mainstream media are constantly surprised by what is happening; (2) short-term predictions by various pundits go in radically different directions and are stated with many reserves; (3) the Establishment dares to say things or use words that w...

Courtesy of NASA and Astronomy Photo Today

On May 29, looking southward from a vantage point about 350 kilometers above the southern Indian Ocean, astronauts onboard the International Space Station watched this enormous, green ribbon shimmering below. Known as aurora australis or southern lights, the shifting, luminous bands are commonly seen at high northern latitudes as well, there known as the aurora borealis or northern lights. North or south their cause is the same though, as energetic charged particles from the magnetosphere...

From Chandra and Hubble and Astronomy Photo of the Day

What is that strange blue blob on the far right? No one is sure, but it might be a speeding remnant of a powerful supernova that was unexpectedly lopsided. Scattered debris from supernova explosion N49 lights up the sky in this gorgeous composited image based on data from the Chandra and Hubble Space Telescopes. Glowing visible filaments, shown in yellow, and X-ray hot gas, shown in blue, span about 30 light-years in our neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. Light from the original ...

The Visible Hand # 2

One theory (addressed below) is that all European countries believe they can export their way to prosperity. Another theory -- which Michael Hudson sets forth -- is that European governments plan to impoverish their working classes, presumably because they want to break the power of ordinary people, make them so miserable that they will be unable to demand anything.

I know there are third world countries which have a rich ruling class, a small middle class and a vast underclass of desperately ...

The Visible Hand

I am playing with an idea which I call 'the visible hand' in homage to Adam Smith. If I remember correctly, Smith argued that in certain situations the activities of individuals, all working in their own interests, can produce a society that works for everyone: the greed and striving of individual merchants can produce general prosperity.

I am thinking of situations where this does not work. For example, what the countries of Europe are trying to do now is cut costs internally, through cutting...

Astronomy Photo of Day

The photo today is awesome, but copyrighted, so here is a link.

When I first saw the image, I thought of L-5 colonies, spinning so there is apparent gravity on the inner surface, and I wondered -- for a moment -- if the photo showed a garden growing inside a centrifuge. In fact, no. It is a photo montage. But quite wonderful; and it gives an idea of what trees in an L-5 would look like.

The Louis XVI and Nicholas II Problem

Something that has puzzled me for decades is how, when a society reaches a grave crisis, the person in charge seems to be amazingly, abnormally stupid. The question I have asked myself is, "Does the crisis produce the stupidity, or does the stupidity produce the crisis?" Would a smarter king or tsar kept the status quo going a while longer?

Looking at the current situation, I begin to think the crisis produces the stupidity. If you read the posts by Krugman, Weisbrot and Hudson below, you will...

Michael Hudson in Counterpunch

Europe is committing fiscal suicide... Despite the deepening Great Recession threatening to bring on outright depression, European Central Bank (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet and prime ministers from Britain's David Cameron to Greece's George Papandreou... are calling for cutbacks in public spending...

Beyond merely shrinking the economy, the neoliberal aim is to change the shape of the trajectory along which Western civilization has been moving for the past two centuries. It is nothing l...

Mark Weibrot in Counterpunch

It is sad to see that the U.S. Congress is having trouble even passing just $24 billion for unemployment insurance at a time when the economy is weak and unemployment is at nearly 10 percent. This shows the power of right-wing ideology in this country: Even the simplest, smallest and most obvious steps to relieve economic misery can be held back...

It was the collapse of private demand – consumption and investment – brought on by the bursting of an $8 trillion housing bubble that put us in...